The Georgian security service allegedly found weapons intended to carry out a "coup d'état". The prime minister and president of Georgia said that the "new Maidan" will not pass
Five Georgian of opposition politicians was charged "for calling for a violent overthrow of the government and attempting a coup d'état" after they were in Tbilisi over the weekend pro-Western protests culminated in clashes between police and demonstrators.
Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that a total of 13 people were arrested.
Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in Tbilisi's Freedom Square on Saturday, October 4 as Georgia held local elections.
neki oppositional leaders promised a "peaceful revolution" instead of elections that were boycotted by the biggest opposition blocs, Al Jazeera reported.
However, a smaller group of protesters tried to enter the presidential palace a few minutes before the polls closed. The police repelled the protesters using gas and water cannons.
The indictments against the five opposition members carry a maximum prison sentence of nine years.
Charges were brought against the world-famous opera singer and opposition activist Pata Burchuladze, Murtaz Zodelava, Irakli Nadiradze, Pata Manjgaladze and Lasha Beridze, writes Rasha Today.
They are accused of organizing and carrying out violence, attempting to occupy an object of strategic and special importance, as well as violently changing the constitutional order of Georgia and calling for the overthrow of state power.
On the day of the vote, they called on the protesters to head from Freedom Square in Tbilisi to the presidential residence. The demonstrators then broke through the fence and threw stones at the police, and police responded with tear gas and water cannons.
The opposition in Georgia faces the same matrix of government repression as the opposition in Serbia. In addition to being accused of attempting a coup d'état, the opposition leaders in Georgia, as in Serbia, are called "foreign agents", and the term "color revolution" is used by the Georgian regime with the same ease as Aleksandar Vučić.
Like Vučić, Georgian lords like to "spice up" the story of preparing a "colored revolution" with the alleged involvement of other countries that want to harm Georgia at any cost.
Unlike Of Serbia, aimed at by the "evil West", in the agenda of the Georgian authorities for the spread of national paranoia, the central place is occupied by Ukraine.
Thus, the day after the elections and demonstrations, the Georgian State Security Service (SDB) triumphantly announced that it had seized a large amount of weapons, ammunition and explosives that "were intended to carry out sabotage on October 4, which was election day in the country."
"Weapons acquired on the order of a person from Georgia who operates within a Ukrainian military unit," said First Deputy SDB Lasha Magradze.
The narrative of the "color revolution" was also embraced by the Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze, who called the incidents in front of the presidential residence a criminal act and said that those responsible would be prosecuted.
He stressed that he will thwart the "revolutionary goals of those who call for protests", adding that the goals of the opposition are doomed to failure.
Kobakhidze also stated that members of the opposition party of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, the United National Movement, "tried to organize for the fifth time 'Maidan' in Georgia".
The president of Georgia, Mihail Kavelashvili, made sure that there was no doubt about where the "colored revolution" was drawing its strength from, stating that "foreign services participated" in the organization of the protest.
The biggest foreign ally of the "Georgian Dream" also came forward. Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian State Duma and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, hailed the victory of the "Georgian Dream" as an "inspiring triumph".
At the same time, Slutsky accused the European and Baltic states of "interfering in the internal affairs" of Georgia, Al Jazeera reported.
Elections were held in 64 municipalities, and according to the data of the Central Election Commission, after 100 percent of the votes were counted, the ruling party "Georgian Dream" won in all municipalities.
The Central Election Commission announced that "Georgian Dream" secured a majority in municipal councils in every municipality in Saturday's elections and that its candidates won landslide victories in mayoral races in all cities.
The usually uninteresting local elections gained importance after months of raids on independent media, restrictions on the work of civil society organizations and the imprisonment of dozens of opponents and activists. Human rights groups say around 60 people, including key opposition figures, journalists and activists, have been imprisoned over the past year.
"Georgian Dream" has promised to ban all major opposition parties.
Protests have rocked Georgia for more than a year, and opposition supporters accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party of authoritarianism and an attempt to return the country, once one of the most pro-Western heirs of the Soviet Union, to Russia.
"Georgian Dream", however, says that it is not pro-Russian, that it wants to join the EU, but at the same time maintain peace with Moscow and preserve what it calls "Georgia's traditional Orthodox Christian values". Such a dichotomy in foreign policy in Europe is peculiar only to the regime of Aleksandar Vučić.
This October, "Vreme" celebrates and honors - as much as 35 percent discount for our 35th birthday! Valid for semi-annual and annual subscriptions. Subscribe now!
The gnats are wreaking havoc in parts of Rome. Bird droppings rain down on the Romans every day. They can't disperse them even with trumpets, so they move around the city with umbrellas
The number of people deported to the US in the fiscal year ended September 30 was about nine percent higher than the previous record of 442.640 deportations.
An outage of Microsoft servers due to increased load has left users around the world without access to Microsoft 365 applications. Problems have also been reported by large companies and government institutions
Milorad Dodik says that his son Igor is among the candidates for prime minister of Republika Srpska because he is one of the most promising members of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats.
Croatia asks Montenegro to fulfill six demands. If it does not do so, it threatens to block its negotiations for membership in the European Union.
At the moment when the institutions of the Republic are destroyed, when Vučić's octopus is still alive, when people are disgusted by the injustice and the stench left behind by the Essenes regime, we have, as Machiavelli said, only civic virtue as the fuel with which we can return to the beginning
The four independent members of REM are an example of perseverance and civic responsibility. Rodoljub Šabić even, upon leaving the premises of REM, after the sentencing of the Informer, experienced that the Essenes insulted him, hit him with their hands and feet. But that too will soon be over
Vučić pardoned the batterers and Dijana Hrkalović. The election winners should abolish the sultan's power that allows one man to run afoul of the entire judicial system
Interview: Branko Stamenković, public prosecutor of the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office
A black picture and the breakdown of the rule of law subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
See all
